


Before You Go

by karcheri



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Post-Season/Series 02, Soft Diego Hargreeves, Sort Of, also he fights himself again, author barely understand time travel, five is a feral bastard but he loves his family of dumbos, honestly the hell siblings are all trying their best, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25834147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karcheri/pseuds/karcheri
Summary: A moment in the timeline- Five encourages his younger self to time travel knowing what the consequences will be. He lets his siblings believe that he's doing the opposite. It's easier this way.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone
Comments: 8
Kudos: 314





	Before You Go

“So we can do it then? We can time travel?”

Five nods and watches his younger self pace their room in circles. The boy is too enthusiastic, too hopeful, too excited- it’s grating. His movements simmering with uncontained energy. Pushing his hair back, and then throwing his arms out, and then putting them back in his pockets only to take them out again immediately after and repeat the cycle. _Childish and unfit for civil conversation_ , as the old man used to call this behavior. _I will not tolerate one of these tantrums again, Number Five._ If dear old dad could’ve seen the things he’d go on to do then he would’ve counted his fucking blessings that a little surliness is the worst that he ever had to deal with.

“I knew it! And I told dad. I- I _told_ him I could do it. But he keeps telling me I’m not ready as if, as if making me jump until I pass out is getting me any closer to…” 

Five has to breath in through his nose and clench his fists in his pockets to keep from interrupting his younger self. He wants to tell him that dad is _right_ , that he is woefully unprepared for what’s ahead of him ( _ash, and rubble, and blood)_ , that if he weren’t so damn arrogant he’d be able to see that - but he knows himself all to well, and knows that any reprimands would be thwarted and any advice wasted. As true at 13 as it is at 58. In through the nose.

His siblings, the older ones, are downstairs trying, and in all probability _failing_ like the bunch of stunted morons that they are, to make as little noise as possible lest they wake the rightful occupants of the house- that being their younger selves, their parents (if you can call them that), and Pogo. Downstairs with them is the malfunctioning briefcase that landed them all here instead of in 2019. Their pick of hundreds of briefcases scattered across the farm and they managed to grab one that doesn’t function properly because _of course_ they do. But he’ll figure it out and he’ll fix it or find a way around it or force his way through it, or whatever it takes. He just needs a little time.

The initial plan had been to go leave the academy as painlessly as possible and find somewhere to regroup so that they (he) can come up with yet another way to get home. Five would’ve preferred to just jump them all out immediately but they were dragging their feet, and looking sad and pathetic per usual, and he was (is) too beyond exhausted to put up a fight about it. If they wanted to linger for a moment after being stuck four decades away for various lengths of time than he would let them. He just had to stomp out the itch under his skin for a little while longer, he reasoned. But then Vanya had to go and complicate things even further. 

It was the damn portrait that gave her the idea. Well, not the portrait. More accurately, the empty place that the portrait of him will occupy in a few short months (As gathered from the date on the newspaper lying on the end table. A new habit of his, he’s noticed, and one he’ll have to train out of himself, is always searching for the paper even if he’s well aware of when and where he is.). Vanya had stopped dead in front of it and just stared at the empty mantle with her arms crossed in front of her, lost in thought. And really, that should’ve been his warning. The minute one of his siblings starts _thinking_ is the minute that things start to go sideways.

Vanya and Luther in particular (and Allison to a lesser extent) had been too scared to touch anything, as if by doing so they would be vandalizing a sacred space- a laughable notion seeing as Klaus had already started pocketing valuables out of habit and Diego had no qualms about touching any and everything, still obviously playing detective. Funny to think that the mental asylum was right on the money about him. Looking around at how five adults in their 30’s are behaving when faced with their childhood home (and if Luther wasn’t a comical sight, trying to squish his dumb gigantic ape self down), it struck him that to be locked up might do them all some good- An idea that was only further backed up when Vanya finally turned around.

“Five, could you stop yourself from jumping forward?,” she had asked and the answer was obviously _no._ They were already doing far too much by warning themselves about Ben and how many times can he explain to them the consequences of messing with the timeline? It is a simple concept and yet they keep missing it. _Nothing_ is insignificant. Not a single event. It’s unfortunate, it truly is, but he has to jump to the future or the timeline will fall apart. How does one break this down so that toddlers could understand it? 

“No,” seemed like a sufficient enough answer for the time being, until Luther piped up from where he was awkwardly sat on a chair.

“She’s right Five. If we can warn ourselves about Ben then we can warn ourselves about the apocalypse.”

And then Diego was going to, hounding him about whether it was true or not. And then Klaus asking if he could push it even further (“Ooh can we do that now? There’s so much I’d like to tell myself about, you know, aside from the Ben thing!) and then it was all of them at once, talking over each other, trying to get his attention.

He downed his drink and slammed it on the bar. He could already feel the migraine building then. 

“It doesn’t work like that and it’s not up for discussion.”

He’d been clenching and unclenching his jaw. In through the nose. His siblings will never appreciate or understand what he went through for them. He’s come to terms with that. It’s hard to picture an apocalypse if you haven’t been in one. It’s hard to justify becoming an assassin if you weren’t otherwise trapped _in_ an apocalypse. And it’s hard to grasp the gravity of the situation if you haven’t seen your siblings dead in front of you three separate times. So he understood where they were coming from. But his patience, which is fragile on a good day, and especially with them, was thinning and fraying at the edges. He recognized that and was hoping that they could leave the subject alone long enough for him to collect himself. Which is precisely why his little self chose that exact moment to jump into the room, hiding his barely concealed fury behind a mask of calm and brandishing the same overconfidence that would be his downfall. 

He had watched as his own eyes scanned the room before landing on their mirror version, abruptly jumping over to him and slamming a liquor bottle against the bar to hold against his throat. From somewhere he heard Luther mutter, “Again?”

“Who are you and why are you here?”

“Calm down,” he said, and held up a hand to show his siblings that they were fine, “I’m you from the future, and those are your siblings. Also from the future. We’re just stopping in. We’ll be gone soon.”

The boy had seemed to consider it but didn’t lower the bottle.

“Why aren’t you the same age as them?”

“It’s complicated,” he said and was this close to decking himself when he looked over the boy’s shoulder to see all his siblings making hand gestures and mouthing ‘tell him.’ He sighed and hung his head, “but I can explain it to you,” he gave a pointed glance upwards, to indicate their room, “if you’re willing to go somewhere more private.” 

His other self nodded and jumped and before he followed he could see all of his siblings giving him a thumbs up like he was some child in need of encouragement. It was equal parts ridiculous and endearing. 

And now he’s watching his actually thirteen year old self pace across the room and brag about his own talents. He’s sat through what he considers to be a reasonable amount of this and now it’s time to interrupt his tangent. Listening to him is emotionally taxing and the longer he lets this go on the harder it is going to be to do what he has to do here. 

But he clears his throat to talk and finds that his mouth has gone dry because this version of him looks so overjoyed and almost innocent. Excited, thrilled even at the prospects and challenges that this information presents and it’s so hard to stop him in his tracks, “Yes, we can time travel,” he chokes out, and he means to say more but he’s too distracted. He can’t ever remember having been this...childlike before, but logically he knows that he must’ve been, and that he must’ve been when he first jumped forward in time. It’s hard to look at.

So he limps his way through a half-assed lie that he’s thirteen as well and jumped into the future, accidentally dragging his older siblings back to the wrong time but that they’re on their way home now so it’s fine and then he jumps out of there as quickly as he can. Landing in the courtyard instead of inside. He needs a moment to breathe.

Trying to pinpoint why acknowledging that he was a child once irks him so much is difficult and Five finds that he’s itching under his skin again and that he can’t shake the tightness in his chest. He’s only a little startled when Diego calls out to him.

“Thought that was you.”

He’s sitting on the cement, back against a column, barely illuminated by the light slanting out through the glass door from inside. The privileges of being able to pick a lock.

He sits down across from Diego, leaning against the opposite column, “Who else could it have been.”

Diego snorts and Five feels something in him loosen a little bit.

“Alright asshole, how’d it go?”

For a moment he considers telling Diego the truth but he quickly discards the idea. Like most things, he must carry this weight alone. It makes them happy to think of a world where he didn’t disappear on them. He can’t take that away from them.

“Well enough.”

Diego hmms.

“You didn’t tell him.”

Shit. He throws his head back against the column and tell himself again: in through the nose. He should’ve anticipated this. Diego has always been strangely perceptive, and lately even more so. Might as well bite the bullet then.

“I _can’t_ …,’ he says, and hopes Diego understands, “...but I wanted to.”

The weight of the confession isn’t lost on Diego it seems, as he leans forward and rests his elbow on his knees, waiting for Five to continue. When he doesn’t go on after a beat, Diego finally speaks.

“That must’ve been hard for you.”

And it takes a minute for that reply to sink in because two weeks ago Diego would’ve called him a selfish coward and thrown a knife at him and before that he didn’t see him for forty five years. _Adapt_ , their dad used to tell them and Five’s trying to, he _is_ , but lately it feels like that's all he does, like there’s nothing solid enough for him to hold onto. Like he’ll fade away forever into the blue light of his jump if he doesn’t keep up.

He swallows.

“I know you guys think I meant to leave, but I didn’t.,” in through the nose,”I tried everything to get home but nothing worked. I spent decades wandering a wasteland of fire and ash alone. It’s not a matter of want. I don’t want the other me to have to do it but he does.”

Diego stares at his hands and Five can tell that he’s thinking out his response carefully. The waiting makes him tense and being vulnerable puts him on edge. He wants to jump.

“Five, can I ask you something?”

Five lifts his hand in response and Diego continues, “What do you want?”

It’s not a complicated question but it carries a weight. Five considers saying _Nothing_ , or _Some peace_ , or _for you to leave me the fuck alone_ but the fights gone out of him and he feels open and raw completely fucking drained. Besides, he couldn’t handle it if Diego were to throw Detective Patch, or the asylum, or Lila back in his face right now.

“I just want one timeline where I can be happy.”

There. He said it, and now they can be done with it. Please let them be done with it. But no.

“That’s all we want for you too, Five. That’s all any of us want for you.”

And then Diego’s hand is on his shoulder and he doesn’t know when they started sitting so close to each other but it’s… nice. It’s grounding. He lets himself lean into it and it hits him belatedly that Diego is the only of them who absorbed their mom’s capability for being gentle. In a second they will both get up and go back inside to collect their siblings and then he will come up with a plan to fix everything _again_ but for now it’s enough to feel human and real and solid.

  
  



End file.
